e
sense of deglutition, bolted this prison at once, though subsequent
experiences led me to look with grave indigestion upon the whole idea
of prisons, their authenticity, and even their existence.

As far as mere dimensions are concerned, the prison of Santa Giustina
was not a hard one to swallow, being only three feet wide by about
ten feet in length. In this limited space, Santa Giustina passed five
years of the paternal reign of Nero (a virtuous and a long-suffering
prince, whom, singularly enough, no historic artist has yet arisen to
whitewash), and was then brought out into the larger cell adjoining,
to suffer a blessed martyrdom. I am not sure now whether the sacristan
said she was dashed to death on the stones, or cut to pieces with
knives; but whatever the form of martyrdom, an iron ring in the
ceiling was employed in it, as I know from seeing the ring,--a
curiously well-preserved piece of iron-mongery. Within the narrow
prison of the saint, and just under the grating, through which the
sacristan thrust his candle to illuminate it, was a mountain of
candle-drippings,--a monument to the fact that faith still largely
exists in this doubting world. My own credulity, not only with regard
to this prison, but also touching the coffin of St. Luke, which I saw
in the church, had so wrought upon the esteem of the sacristan, that
he now took me to a well, into which, he said, had been cast the bones
of three thousand Christian martyrs. He lowered a lantern into the
well, and assured me that, if I looked through a certain screenwork
there, I could see the bones. On experiment I could not see the
bones, but this circumstance did not cause me to doubt their presence,
particularly as I did see upon the screen a great number of coins
offered for the repose of the martyrs' souls. I threw down some
_soldi_, and thus enthralled the sacristan.

If the signor cared to see prisons, he said, the driver must take him
to those of Ecelino, at present the property of a private gentleman
near by. As I had just bought a history of Ecelino, at a great
bargain, from a second-hand book-stall, and had a lively interest in
all the enormities of that nobleman, I sped the driver instantly to
the villa of the Signor P----.

It depends here altogether upon the freshness or mustiness of the
reader's historical reading whether he cares to be reminded more
particularly who Ecelino was. He flourished balefully in the early
half of the thirteenth c